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Formations 2022-23 Programme

12 Oct 2022

text on a yellow background, reading 'Formations 2022 / 2023'

FORMATIONS looks forward to welcoming audiences for both online and in-person events in 2022-23. This year, events include conferences, author events, creative writing workshops, and wellbeing workshops. This year’s speakers discuss places including Trinidad, India, the US, Canada, and the UK. Themes our speakers consider include land and nature, voices and sound, borders and hospitality. 

FORMATIONS is a public events series which foregrounds under-represented artists, writers, thinkers, and activists, run by NTU’s Postcolonial Studies Centre and Bonington Gallery. 

Events
CADALFEST

This segment of Formations, CADALFEST, relates to the Celebrating Adivasi and Dalit Arts and Literature Festival (CADALFEST) taking place across India and in Nottingham. CADALFEST is the first international festival series dedicated to artists whose work creatively resists caste discrimination and social exclusion in India.

Adivasi and Dalit Futurism: Artists Subash Thebe Limbu and Osheen Siva in Conversation
Thursday 20 October, 2022
4 pm – 5pm (BST), online

In Conversation with the Dalit Feminist Writer, Gogu Shyamala
Thursday 27 October, 2022
4 pm – 5 pm (BST), online

Ningwasum Film Screening and conversation with Subash Thebe Limbu
Thursday 24 November, 2022
7 pm – 8:30 pm, online

Shivanee Ramlochan

Channelling Queer Depths: An Evening with Poet Shivanee Ramlochan
Tuesday 15 November, 2022
6:30pm – 8pm, at Nottingham Contemporary 

Poetry Workshop: Writing Your Truth with Radical Honesty
Wednesday 16 November, 2022
5:30 pm – 7:30 pm, at Bonington Gallery

Land in Literature

Nottingham Trent University second year BA English, BA Creative Writing, and BA Secondary English Education students have collaborated with students at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Canada to write, edit and publish a special issue of the Literary Cultures journal, focused on representations of land in modern and contemporary literature wherein land may be perceived as vulnerable or under threat.

Watch their online segment, which includes discussions of the articles written for the journal special issue, the accompanying book and film reviews, as well as the on-campus event in January 2023 with poet Jo Dixon.

Dalit Literature in Marathi and Bangla Little Magazines

Thursday 23 February, 2023
12:30pm – 1:30pm, online
more info

This online roundtable is a pre-conference event on Dalit magazines with editors and subject experts from West Bengal and Maharashtra.

Questioning Language and Knowledge: The Challenge to Creole-speaking Communities

Wednesday 5 April, 2023
7pm – 8pm, online
more info

To coincide with Cedar Lewisohn’s solo exhibition earlier this year, Patois Banton, join us for a free online talk by Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson, this will be followed by a Q&A with Ramisha Rafique.

50 years of New Beacon Books: Gus John with guest poet Yolanda Lear

Thursday 13 April, 2023
6:30pm – 8:30pm
more info

Professor Gus John and poet Yolanda Lear join Jenni Ramone’s Black Writing in Britain students and Formations audiences for a special event on the history of New Beacon Books and its place in the history of Black British publishing, writing, and activism.

Swan Song – an exploration of Cuban performance art

Thursday 15 June, 2023
6:30pm – 8:30pm
more info

Join us for a free screening of a newly-translated documentary that explores the emergence of performance art in Cuba in the 1980s. The screening will be followed by a conversation with film director and artist Glexis Novoa.

Conference: When I Dare to be Powerful

When I Dare to be Powerful International Conference will bring filmmakers, artists, writers and activists together with conceptual thinkers and cultural theorists to answer pressing questions relating to voice as an agent of change.

The conference period begins on 26th April and runs through to the one-day conference in June, all information can be found here.